UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : Annalena Baerbock (President of the General Assembly)

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ended an era, says UN General Assembly President

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops on 24 February 2022 shattered the peaceful aspirations of an entire continent, but war must never be the new normal, UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock said on Tuesday.

In a wide-ranging press conference taking in the UN’s perilous financial situation, the chances of the next Secretary-General being a woman along with challenges and priorities for the global body at a time of spiking geopolitical tensions, the head of the General Assembly insisted on the need to protect the rights of everyone “everywhere, every day”.

“Four years ago, people in Europe woke up in another world because generations like mine have always had the privilege to live a life in peace,” Ms. Baerbock told journalists in Geneva. “But this changed four years ago with the full invasion [by] Russia, of the neighbouring country of Ukraine.”

Marking four years to the day since Russian tanks headed for Kyiv, the senior UN official condemned the ongoing deadly conflict that has killed thousands, including civilians unable to reach bomb shelters in time.

“They told me count till 40 and if you're still alive you obviously made it because with the rockets being shot over the border there is no time in many places to find a safer place,” Ms. Baerbock told journalists in Geneva, recounting the testimony of a teenage girl she met while visiting Kharkiv, 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Russian border.

The principle of protecting human rights and addressing suffering everywhere around applies as much to Geneva and New York as it does “in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in Ukraine, Sudan and Myanmar and so many other places around the world”, she insisted. “Unfortunately, some of these crises do not even make it to the news at all.”

Human rights of men and women remain “fundamental to the UN” and are “not new demands” just as much as they are “not optional”, Ms. Baerbock continued. “There have been women’s rights as human rights from the beginning, it says ‘all human [beings]’, not all men.”

Asked whether it seemed less likely that a woman might be elected as the next UN Secretary-General as the election process draws nearer, the General Assembly President highlighted that the body’s entire membership of 193 countries last year issued a collective call “to strongly encourage nomination of women”.

Despite this unanimous position, “the closer the decision comes, then suddenly it's being forgotten that …half of the population are indeed women”, she continued. Citing her personal experience of “realpolitik” when running for different positions, Ms. Baerbock recounted being asked: ‘Are you not too young? Are you not too old?’ This kind of discrimination is heard “way more for women than for men”, she insisted.

Once Secretary-General António Guterres’s second and final term in office ends on 31 December, the new UN chief will most likely have to continue to grapple with the Organization’s crippling funding crisis running into the billions of dollars, in large part caused by the increasing late payments of dues - or partial or even non-payment - by Member States.

“Every Member State has to pay its contribution in full and in time. And [$]160 million are obviously not in full,” Ms. Baerbock said, in response to a question about whether the UN is still heading for financial collapse.

“I would like to underline that this is not simple figures and numbers, this is about people dying. If we have to cut humanitarian aid by 20 per cent, if we have withdrawal, especially from the World Health Organization but and also less funding of the World Food Organization, this means literally that especially infants are dying - because the special nutrition for infants, for children, is what the UN is mainly delivering in places of crisis. And if we cut 20 per cent of this delivery, 20 per cent of infants won't survive.”

ends

Annalena Baerbock (President of the General Assembly) - Geneva Press Briefing

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